I walked upon the Boulevard Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or sorrow. On consulting my inmost thoughts I found there an unimpassioned serenity, a something akin to ennui; I scarcely heard the noise of the wheels, the horses—the crowd that surrounded me.
Habituated to the turmoil of those grand dead nations near the vast ruins of the desert, this little hubbub of wearied citizens scarcely attracted my attention.
My face must have reflected the disdainful quietude of my soul.
By contemplative communion with the mute, motionless colossal faces of Egypt's and Persia's monuments, I felt that unwittingly my countenance typified the cold imperturbable tranquillity of their granite brows.
That evening La Favorita was played at the opera. Charming work! full of grace, passion, love. Reaching the end of Le Pelletier street, my walk was blocked by a line of carriages coming down Provence street; not having the patience to wait the passage of this string of vehicles, nor being very dainty in my distinction between pavement and street, I followed in the wake of the carriages, and as they did not conceal the façade of the opera at the end of the court, I saw it, and said "I will go in."
I took a box below, because my family-box had changed hands, hangings and keys at least five times in ten years, and seated myself in the background to avoid recognition, and leave undisturbed friends who would feel in duty bound to pay fashionable court to a traveller due ten years. I was not familiar with La Favorita, and my ear took in the new music slowly. Great scores require of the indolent auditor a long novitiate.
While I listened indolently to the orchestra and the singers, I examined the boxes with considerable interest, to discover what little revolutions a decade could bring about in the aristocratic personnel of the opera. A confused noise of words and some distinct sentences reached my ear from the neighboring boxes when the orchestra was silent. I listened involuntarily; the occupants were not talking secrets, their conversation was in the domain of idle chat, that divides with the libretto the attention of the habitues of the opera.
They said, "I could distinguish her in a thousand, I mistrust my sight a little, but my glass is infallible; it is certainly Mlle. de Bressuire—a superb figure, but she spoils her beauty by affectation."
"Your glass deceives you, my dear sir, we know Mlle. de Bressuire."
"Madame is right; it is not Mlle. That young lady at whom everybody is gazing, and who to-night is the favorite—excuse the pun—of the opera, is a Spaniard; I saw her at the Bois de Boulogne in M. Martinez de la Hosa's carriage. They told me her name, but I have forgotten. I never could remember names."